Meta Platforms’ (META) chief artificial intelligence scientist, Yann LeCun, plans to leave the company to launch his own startup, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
LeCun is in early fundraising discussions, and the new venture will focus on advancing work on world models.
Meta’s leadership shake-up comes as Mark Zuckerberg revamps the company’s AI strategy to compete more aggressively with OpenAI and Google in developing advanced AI systems.
Zuckerberg has shifted focus away from the long-horizon research efforts of Meta’s Fundamental AI Research Lab (FAIR), led by Yann LeCun since 2013, and toward faster deployment of AI models and products after concluding Meta had fallen behind key rivals.
Over the summer, Zuckerberg brought in Alexandr Wang to run a new “superintelligence” division, spending $14.3B to hire the 28-year-old Scale AI founder and acquire a 49% stake in his company.
Shares of META fell 1.2% premarket.